I am a menopausal woman.
Are you?
As it’s currently Menopause Awareness Month, I thought I would share my menopause story. To be honest, it’s not a fairytale, it’s more of a horror story.
In 2020 I appeared to be at the top of my game. I had been a successful headteacher and executive headteacher, and was Director of Education for a successful, high performing trust. However, over time I had experienced a number of changes.
The physical changes were easier to spot:
- I was having hot flushes
- My sleep had become really interrupted.
- I needed to go to the toilet a lot more in the night.
- I was then suffering night sweats
- I was increasingly finding commonplace words temporarily hard to recall.
I laughed a lot of these symptoms off with colleagues and friends, and didn’t really take them seriously.
However, there were changing psychological symptoms too.
- I was becoming more anxious, more of the time.
- I was experiencing unexplained changes in mood, such as irritability or low moods
- I began to feel less confident.
These physical and psychological changes coincided with both my parents declining and subsequently passing away. It was a hellish time to be honest.
As I was in the thick of it, and it was so insidious, I didn’t really notice these changes take place. They crept up on me almost unawares. I didn’t take the symptoms seriously, and didn’t realise how they were impacting on me.
One day, towards the end of 2021, for seemingly no reason at all, I broke. I started crying in the car on the way home, and couldn’t stop. I was utterly exhausted. My physical and mental health were at an all-time low.
My colleagues were really supportive, but I knew that I was so depleted that it would take quite some time for me to recover. A week or two off sick, simply wasn’t going to do it. After a lot of agonising, I decided to resign from my post.
So, I became one of the 10% of women who leave their jobs due to menopause – with many more reducing their hours for the same reason. Leaving that role behind, was like suffering a bereavement for me. I loved it so much, but knew that I could no longer continue to work in that role with the symptoms that I was suffering.
Three years later, I am in a totally different place. I have learnt a lot about menopause, and now treat the symptoms with HRT, as well as practicing other self-care strategies.
I often wonder ‘what might have been?’ so I hope that if my story resonates with your experience, you are able to take action now, before it becomes too late.
If you are an employer, you need to know that this happens to many women, and be prepared to help them find the information, resources and treatment that they will need to get back to being their best selves again.
What is your experience of menopause? Please share your thoughts. I'd love to hear from you.
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